Pentagon medical intelligence chief denies ABC News report that there was a memo warning about ‘cataclysmic’ coronavirus pandemic in November 2019

Another day, another fake news from mainstream media. Over the past 24 hours, an unsubstantiated report from ABC News has been circulating on the social media that the intelligence community warned about coronavirus back in November 2019. However, the head of a Defense Intelligence Agency center issued a rare public denial of a report by ABC News, which alleged  that its medical health team issued a memo to the White House warning of a spreading coronavirus outbreak based on information it gleaned back to November 2019.

The denial came after a report Wednesday that officials around the U.S. government received a warning about the growing contagion – culminating its inclusion in the President’s Daily Brief in early January.

‘As a matter of practice the National Center for Medical Intelligence does not comment publicly on specific intelligence matters,’ Col. R. Shane Day, the center’s director said in a rare public statement on an intelligence matter.

‘However, in the interest of transparency during this current public health crisis, we can confirm that media reporting about the existence/release of a National Center for Medical Intelligence Coronavirus-related product/assessment in November of 2019 is not correct. No such NCMI product exists,’ he said, according to a tweet from Times Magazine.

JUST IN: Director of DIA’s National Center for Medical Intelligence issues rare, unrequested statement regarding COVID. pic.twitter.com/tCw0GRchJ6

— W.J. Hennigan (@wjhenn) April 9, 2020

A defense official added that the NCMI and the DIA spent considerable time in the last 24 hours, examining all possible products that could be identified as related to this, and that they did not find any. The exclusive ABC News report, released Wednesday morning, said that the NCMI had warned the military and the White House about the spread of the virus in China until the end of November:

Until the end of November, U.S. intelligence officials had warned that contagion was devastating the Wuhan region of China, changing living and business patterns, and posing a threat to the population, according to four sources. about secret reports.

The ABC News report said that concerns about what is now known as the coronavirus pandemic were “detailed in a November intelligence report” by the NCMI, according to “two content-aware officers. of the document. “

According to the report, “computer and computer intercepts, along with satellite imagery” were analyzed and alarmed that a “out of control disease” would be a serious threat to United States forces in Asia. One ABC News source said that analysts concluded that this could be a “cataclysmic event” and that it “was repeatedly presented” to DIA, Pentagon Joint Staff and the White House.